(by
Noell Wolfgram Evans) Max Fleischer is unarguably one of the pioneers
of animation. His responsibilities in bringing Betty Boop and
Popeye to the silver screen would alone warrant him a place in
the history books, but perhaps Fleischer's greatest achievements
were not what he put on the screen but how he put it there. The
story of Max Fleischer is one of technical innovation, full of
exploration in the production process of the animated film.

Max Fleischer
was born in 1883 in Vienna. His family immigrating to this country
soon after. From an early age he had an interest in mechanics,
not just for what they were but for what, in combination, they
could be. He also had a talent for drawing and felt the strong
pull of the movies. All three of these interests came together
in 1917 when he put together a short animated film and began to
shop it around to various distributors. Fleischer didn't have
just anything though as he had put an animation together using
a process he and his brother Dave had invented in 1915 called
the Rotoscope.

The Rotoscope
is an amazing device that helps to produce realistic animation.
The process works like this: An actor is shot acting out (in costume)
the scene which will be animated. This film is then played back
frame-by-frame on the underside of a piece of glass. On the topside
of the glass is an animator who (for lack of a better word) traces
that frame of film. These drawings are then cleaned up and added
to with a final result of a very life like (from the movements
of the cartoon character down to the creases on their clothing)
animation.

The
Rotoscope was used to great effect by the Fleischer crew, in particular
on several of the early 'Out of the Inkwell' films and in the
later Superman series. It was in the Superman series (which started
in 1941 with 'Superman' and included 1942's 'The Bulleteers',
'The Magnetic Telescope' and 'Volcano' among others) that Rotoscoping
really received a 'second revival'. Its use in these pictures,
particularly in the non-action scenes, helped to ground the films
in a certain reality and which in turn gave the action sequences
a greater impact. Why this process never caught on could be distributed
amongst a variety of reasons including the amount of time it took
to produce a film in this manner, the cost factor and the trends
of the times, mainly the marks set by Disney. The Rotoscope is
not completely forgotten, though, as director Richard Linklater
is using a version of it for his 2001 film 'Waking Life'.

The Rotoscope
should not be confused with Max's other 'roto' invention: the
Rotograph. The Rotograph was born out of the desire to place animated
characters into realistic settings. With this device, the backgrounds
for a cartoon would be filmed as live action. This film would
then be projected, frame-by-frame on the underside of a piece
of glass. A cel of the animated character(s) would then be place
on the front side of the glass and this would then be photographed.
The film would then be advanced a frame and a new cel would be
added. The end result would be the illusion that this animated
character was inhabiting our 'real' world.

Like
the Rotoscope, the Rotograph was used to enhance the early films
of Fleischer, particularly in the 'Out of the Inkwell' series
which featured the first Fleischer star, Koko the Clown. The 'Out
of the Inkwell ' series set the trend for Fleischer cartoons to
come; they had a certain self-awareness about them, it was as
if all participating (Koko included) knew that they were part
of a cartoon and in turn they worked the medium accordingly. Fleischer
was certainly not the first animator to mix the real world with
the cartoon one, but he certainly did it like no other.

Fleischer
was never one to rest on his accomplishments, he was constantly
attempting to push the limits further (partly out of personal
drive and partly to 'out-do' Disney, a goal of most animators
of the time). And so it was, that in 1934 he devised a new filming
method which would place cartoon characters in their most realistic
settings yet. 'Set Backs' as they were called around Fleischer's
studio were miniature sets which resided on a miniature turntable
on a stage. An animated cel would be placed between two pieces
of glass (which acted simply as a 'holder') and
then this glass was placed on the set. A camera photographed the
scene and then a new cel was placed in. In addition the set could
rotate slightly as needed. This all helped to give the effect
of an animated character living not just in the real world but
in a fully fleshed out 3-D environment. For added effect, objects
(a chair, some trees etc) would also be placed in front of the
cel to flesh the depth of the scene out even fuller. This process
was first used in 'Poor Cinderella', a 1934 Betty Boop cartoon
but perhaps it can be seen most effectively in the 1936 two reel
'Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor,' which also happened
to be Popeye's first color cartoon, the first Fleischer cartoon
to receive an Academy Award nomination and, at two reels, the
longest cartoon (at that point in time) ever created as Snow
White was still a year away.

Although all
these inventions were important and in many ways furthered the
growth of the animated film and our appreciation for it, Fleischer
might just well be famous for something far simpler. A popular
attraction of early motion picture exhibition were the Sing Alongs.
In between pictures, the house organist would play a popular song
of the day and the audience would be invited to sing along. If
they didn't know the words it was ok because they would be shown
on screen through the use of slides. Between 1924 and 1925, the
idea came up within the Fleischer Studios to place these words
on to film. That was a fair idea in it's self, but it was decided
to take this thought a step further and also provided some guidance
(as to what to sing and when) for the audience. They eventually
came to the idea of bouncing a 'ball' over the word that was to
be sung in its proper place in the song.

And with that,
the 'Song Car-Tune' was born.

It's interesting
to note that originally this series wasn't animated at all. Instead
the words were painted onto a large drum. Standing above the drum
with a white ball on a long black stick would be a man who would
move the ball over the appropriate word in time with the song.
The film would then be processed and reprocessed as a negative
image until it appeared as if this ball was bouncing from word
to word. It arrived on screen as an instant success, even today,
nearly some eighty years after the fact, people (most of whom
who have never even seen a 'Car-Tune') continue to use the phrase
'Follow the Bouncing Ball'. Producing the series in this state
could have carried the Fleischers for a while, but Max was never
happy to keep things as they were and so it wasn't long before
the words and the ball were animated and then soon after that,
the words themselves began to act out the song. Either a Fleischer
character (such as Koko or Bimbo) would appear with the words
and 'act out' the song or the words themselves would act out their
meanings. As an example if the word was 'race' it might zoom off
the screen. These were just another example of the 'knowingness'
of the Fleischer cartoons, the realization of the cartoon that
it was in fact an animation and it's acting in accordance of the
laws (or absence of them) in animation.

During these
early days, Disney was Fleischer's primary rival. Max Fleischer
continually strove to meet the high marks that Disney set although
the two men were fundamentally different. As Disney was innovating
what was on the film, Fleischer was busy coming up with new ways
to get the images to the film. His mechanics and the results of
them helped to forward the production and appreciation of the
animated film.